In an article on the Volcker Committee report, Prakash Karat, CPI(M) general secretary, has sought to discount corruption in the UN-administered Oil for Food scandal in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Stressing “K. Natwar Singh’s assertion that the US is intent on targeting individuals and organisations that do not share its hegemonic views”, Karat has urged the Congress not to be “apologetic or defensive” about its ties with Saddam’s Iraq.His larger point is implicit: an US-driven committee has “fixed” opponents. Engaging as Karat’s argument is, it falters on two counts. First, it gives Natwar Singh and the Congress an acquittal even prior to the case being heard. Before two inquiry bodies set up by the government of India have got to work, the CPI(M)’s leader has, in effect, told them that there is no political corruption for them to investigate. Second, Karat’s reading of history is flagrantly selective. The sanctions against Iraq were not unilaterally imposed as part of the “first invasion” by an Anglo-American alliance. They were put in place in 1990 by the UN and had the world’s support, including that of then Left-backed National Front government in India. The UN was responding to Saddam’s annexation of Kuwait, a sovereign nation. After Kuwait was freed, the sanctions were persisted with because Saddam refused to clearly and unambiguously alter his hostile position. The Oil for Food programme was both a means to provide Iraq essential necessities, and also find money for war reparations to Kuwait’s residents — again, including many Indians — who had had their property looted by Saddam’s soldiers. Saddam used the programme as a tool to make easy money — by charging companies “surcharges” and to dispense political patronage. Companies that paid the surcharges/kickbacks and didn’t declare them are answerable under one set of laws. Indeed, Volcker indicts some fairly big Western MNCs on this score. Individual politicians who may have benefitted from Saddam’s largesse fall in a more sinister category. To suggest they are all victims of an American conspiracy is to surrender criminal investigation to ideological fetishes.
